Egypt

Jews and Palestinians: Is the Elusive Peace Close By?

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links, Politics, Religion , , , , , , ,

A couple of days ago I came across this fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal. It’s about the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands around the same time as the expulsion of Arabs from the new state of Israel and how the Israelis have finally gotten around to bringing this issue up in negotiations. Among the excerpts:

Within 25 years [of the establishment of Israel], the Arab world lost nearly all its Jewish population. Some faced expulsion, while others suffered such economic and social hardships they had no choice but to go. Others left voluntarily because they longed to settle in Israel. Only about 4,300 Jews remain there today, mostly in Morocco and Tunisia […]

And this:

Many of the Palestinians who fled Israel wound up stranded in refugee camps. Multiple U.N. agencies were created to help them, and billions of dollars in aid flowed their way. The Arab Jews, by contrast, were quietly absorbed by their new homes. “The Arab Jews became phantoms” whose stories were “edited out” of Arab consciousness […]

I think that the Israelis were right to bring these expulsions to the forefront of the debates with the Palestinians. A lot of people on both sides have suffered and it is a good thing that the plight of the Arab world’s Jews is now being highlighted. But now that this historical fact is being highlighted by the Israeli state in its negotiations with the Palestinians, will it do any good for the peace process?

The reaction by one of the Palestinian negotiators is telling: Continue reading →

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Co-editor Fred Foldvary on the Buffet Misrule.

Mona Eltahaway, an Egyptian-American columnist who was detained and sexually assaulted by Egyptian security forces during the uprisings, writes about Why They Hate Us.

In the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf explains how student debt forgiveness is just another subsidy to the rich.

Will Wilkinson, writing in the Economist, on how Fair is Fair.

Guess who else got their hands on Libyan weapons?

Update on America and on the World

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , ,

Newt Gingrich [recently] won the South Carolina primary by a big margin. I know that’s only South Carolina, perhaps the most conservative state. Still, that’s a major rebuke to serious candidate Romney. The speeches both gave after Gingrich won delineate clearly two major paths for the Republican Party. Romney’s speech was colorless, odorless, rich in platitudes. It was the kind of speech unfairly associated with “moderates” who deserve better.

Gingrich spoke incisively, precisely about what agitates conservatives like me who are not born-again Christians nor any of the other stereotypes the liberal press has invented. We want a smaller government that’s not wasteful and that does not get us into debt for two  generations to come. Gingrich’s speech was well received for another reason: It spoke of simple pride in America, not of imperial pride, not of a wish to dominate, not of hubris but of simple dignity.

There is a pervasive feeling that we lost our national dignity during the three-year Obama presidency. It was not all his fault. Certainly, a major contributor is our large national debt that was already too large when he took office. However, it’s fair to charge Obama for this loss of dignity because he told us repeatedly that America should become a smaller, more ordinary country, and it has. If you tell Mom in anger, ” I wish you died” and she dies, don’t be surprised if your brothers are angry at you. And, President Obama, whose middle name is  still Hussein, bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, the grandchild of camel thieves who happens to have captured a lot of oil. Continue reading →